yes yes yes, there is a home for this! Earth and Activism and Spirit orbit with Starhawk and the Earth Activist Training Permaculture-Palooza

there is a home for this!
yay yay yay!

those words kept landing with a thud in my stomach throughout the 2 weeks of Earth Activist Training. They landed like comfort, like warm tea on a cold day. Mmmmm, relax, spread out, there's a home for this and you're inside it.

I've had a funny hunch that permaculture is an important lens for me. I've worktraded on permaculture sites, tried (unsuccessfully... so far) to get permaculture classes started, written articles about queer permaculture (more on that some other time). But honestly it was all a hunch - my own experience was my greatest proof that permaculture and real liberatory social justice are one in the same. we can talk about composting our poop into fertile soil one moment and then discuss effective methods of direct action the next? we can talk about dealing with police brutality in the same breath as rainwater harvesting? oh wow oh wow yes!

Starhawk's E.A.T. course, which she taught with Charles Williams, is freaking amazing. As she went over the syllabus each item lodged itself in another nook of my brain, found a fold yearning for exactly that flavor to chew on. There was already space for this knowledge, all i needed was the content to fill in the corners and expand the edges of this now-huge space.

this approach to permaculture constantly examines the human relationships that go down alongside the earth sustainability work. we spent 2 nights talking about non-hierarchical organizing and methods to make a meeting functional fun and effective. we talked about magical activism. baby we even devised some magical activism.

On the activism front, this shit is potent. After so much analysis, heartache and headbreak over Occupy, I came to quite a few conclusions about what makes organizing work. It all aligns with permaculture principles. Observe first.  Value the marginal, the edges, those with less power. Form coalitions that can thrive autonomously, not with constant leadership from outside. I could go on. Permaculture extends these ideas into physical realities. It explains through a lens of natural systems that makes these abstract concepts so much more tenable. Diversity isn't just a cute thing people think theyre supposed to want. it is the core essential necessity of a healthy reality. Blam. If you look at something as if it's a problem, it will stay a problem. if you look at something as if it's information, than it's a solution. Blam.

Also, the intergenerationality of the group was as important as the course content. I have been hungering for relationship with my elders. Here i found many generations interwoven and conscious of how important this fabric is for any future progress. We talked about the struggle to expand the narrowing confines of gender binaries, how to talk about a goddess who is not only a goddess, what earlier feminist movements have to teach youth today and what healing needs to take place. Many new questions, and damn it felt good to sit with people who aren't within 15 years of my age.

Permaculture is as ancient as humanity. This word encapsulates a whole history of people living together with the earth. These past 2 weeks I felt for the first time that I was honoring the ancestors and indigenous peoples of this land in a way that was authentic and active, not guilt-ridden and defeated.

this is the beginning of something.  Spirit and magic can be manifested and harnessed to increase human capacity for love and creativity. this is no joke, no subtle thing. This is the power ritual holds for the transformation of life. I'm telling ya. I've held such a distance between myself and spirituality for so long, the vestiges of scientific conditioning clinging to me and hissing "that doesn't make sense!". But here i found that the things that inspire me about science can be the wellspring from which my spirituality gushes - i can marvel at cells and water and star dust and pound the earth in ecstatic frothing. Woopee!

O.U.R.Ecovillage: Kids Camp!

I got a call Saturday night, 9pm, 2 weeks ago.

Brandy said "the person who was supposed to be running kids camp on monday cant anymore. If you still want to do work-trade for the E.A.T. course, can you come out? tomorrow?"

GUH.

I ran home, hyperventilating and sweating. I had applied months earlier to do work trade at OUR Ecovillage for the  EAT Course. EAT = Earth Activist Training, and it is the Permaculture Design Certificate course that Starhawk started and teachers. Why was i so rabid for this course? instead of re-capturing how i had been feeling, heres the blurb i sent my new permaculture friend Nicole in the UK describing my desires (sent months ago) :

"I am hungry for all permaculture skills (I have a lot of experience with
natural building, composting toilets, and rainwater catchment systems,
less experience with gardening), but what I'm looking for specifically is
a permaculture practice that places social justice at the center of the
work. I am very interested in permaculture as a lens on liberation. I am a
queer, feminist, anti-racist and anti-capitalist individual, and all of
these things are very tied in to permaculture for me. I believe that
permaculture has the ability to transform how people organize, how we
create self-sufficient alternatives to dominant structures, how we achieve
liberation of oppressed people, and how we shift activism from an
"anti-domination" stance to a "pro-liberation" stance. To me the
domination of women, of queers, of people of color, and of the earth are
all part of the same nasty mindset. I am most interested in projects that
have strong racial, gender, and economic diversity. I'm super excited
about learning from women and transfolk."

So basically i was searching for permaculture that had social justice at its core. i searched and searched, but was having a surprisingly hard time actually finding groups that were doing this work. lots of people sprinkle it on top, but really focusing on social permaculture? it was often an afterthought.

Starhawk is one of the founders of Eco-Feminism and modern Paganism; she is a huge social justice activist and one of the most important nonviolence advocates, particularly during the anti-nuclear movement of the 90s.nAnd I didn't know this at the time, but she's also super involved with, basically, organizational theory. How groups of people work. What sort of organizing is empowering, inspires action. What meetings make us sing and what meetings make us glaze over. How to achieve non-hierarchy, easier said than done. And ths is basically all of the stuff i think about all the damn time (thus, this blog.) Social Permaculture. give it to me.

ok ok ok ok ok okok okokokokokokokokok,
there needs to be more conversation about this class, which actually started a week ago. Spirituality, building, solutions, direction, acceptance, expansiveness, ritual, forgiveness, coalescence, magic, challenge, etc etc all come to mind. seriously folks, this shit is poppin off and we gotta chat. but for now, let's get back to that phone call.

Basically, it was ridiculous and meant taking a plane, but i couldn't turn away from this. i had been holding this in my heart for months. i found out a had a bunch of miles that would expire unless i used them, and on monday morning i was on a 6am plan bound for Victoria, BC, Canada. Tuesday morning, Kids Camp! began!

and it was great. no one involved knew they would be earlier than the thursday before it started (thats 4 days). there were 16 kids, ages 5-10. 3 counselors. Us counselors joked often about how crazy it all was - all thrown into it, no schedule, everything and i mean just about everything off the cuff. but the kids were so creative and amazing, kind and ready to learn. and this place, this place. this place is an endless well of fun stuff to do, cause guess what, that's what happens when communities come together and decide to do stuff. this ecovillage is full of projects, from farm work and animal care to building with mud and clay and making your own butter and wandering in the woods. we actually pulled it off because the community held space for the kids, because us counselors were badass at checking in about each others needs and boundaries, and because this sort of place is ripe with spaces to learn. oh, and mostly cause the kids were amazing. if anything our realization that it was actually chaotic was the most negative part of kids camp, cause the actual days went very well.

it's a funny thing. Brandy, the director of OUR Ecovillage, kind of irresponsibly dumped a huge load on 3 unknowing people, assuming theyd figure it out. And we grumbled that it was irresponsible, but you know what? She was right. We figured it out. And it was great. Learning can be funny.

Some bitty thoughts on Resisting Racism: Queer Liberation is Collective Liberation Workshop

Jenna and Damien (facilitators of the workshop) and Ian (Provdience-based queer organizer and artist extraordinary) celebrating the warm feeling of "woah, we talked about some heavy shit" after the workshop.

Traveling organizers!
what a thought!
what a dream!

Last weekend Jenna Peters-Golden and Damien Luxe blew in to town for a weekend of doing. The two bad-asses facilitated a refreshingly (not being sarcastic! truthfully!) 4 hour long workshop about how racism manifests itself and what queer liberation has to do with all forms of liberation.
It was refreshing cause it didn't have to end as soon as we got started.
15 people came, which is wildly wonderful considering the time commitment. It speaks to the hunger of people to connect the queer movement to broader struggle.

We almost had enough time to and enough detail to get really specific with our dreams. One exercise had use imagine the collaboration of two historical activist groups who never actually had anything to so with each other. I was in the group combining the American Indian Movement and the Boston Women's Movement. This was surprisingly fruitful, but so rushed that we couldn't get very creative and I felt anxious the whole time about getting a chance to speak or about one person talking the whole time. So, note to all facilitators: give lots of time to the creative side of things! I felt like most time was spent on clever tricks for understanding racism, taught by the folks in the front of the room to the folks in the back of the room. Because it was an audience of activists, I think more time could have been spent sharing our own opinions and experiences, and spent on building alternatives. Remember y'all, i'm in a hyper-action-ey mood lately, so i guess take this criticism with a grain of salt. or don't.

There were almost only white people in attendance, which we didn't mention, but I just mentioned, so there. Is there a growing attempt on the part of white activists to get real about their anti-racist work? Is this just guilt? Is this just a tiny subsect of people who were already convinced that there's such a thing as modern racism? Where is this coming from and where is it going to?
My hope is that more folks are waking up to the pervasiveness of racism in the United States, that more folks want to figuring out how they can DO something about it versus comment on it often, that folks are increasingly seeing how racism operates at every level of society and identity.

What is the conversation around race in organizations and communities that you are a part of? What are the actions people are taking? 

I'm particularly interested in groups that aren't explicitly anti-racist, such as feminist groups and queer groups - are y'all organizing around race?

Photos from Hot Pink Mass! Queer Cabaret + Femmes Fight Back Community Installation

 Providence. Wow. You turned it out.

Damien Dealing With Dudes

J.R. Uretsky being amazing

 

Jess Chen and Noel'le Longhaul did some gorgeous spoken word situations

Alexis Drutchas laying it dooowwwwn

Femmes Fight Back! Installation

Allied Media Conference Thoughts: Pragmatism, Buzzwords and Metaphor

note: this advice and rant is so deeply happening because, of all people, i live in abstract theory land and this is my struggle on the regular. i've noticed that my advice is generally stuff i'm trying to believe in myself.





Skills vs. Discussions. Workshops need to be labelled clearly skillshare, discussion, lecture, or performance. Have you ever gone to a workshop expecting some skills and it turns out everyone's sitting in circles theorizing about what the word "skill" means? Point is I have learned something important about myself at the Allied Media Conference.

I have no patience for metaphor.

I have no patience for theory. 

I want to learn what you tried yesterday, how it went, and what you are going to try today.

Display from the Maine-based Beehive Collective

The AMC is a conference full of Radical Activists (note the capitals). A lot of these folks know the language and the grammars of this community. I swear if I hear another buzzzz word.... liberation. oppression. I don't even know what liberation means! I don't even know what oppression means! Don't just drop that as though you're saying something when in fact you're saying everything/nothing!






Mind you I drop that shit like an exhale. I'm all "feminism"-this and "liberatory community practices"-that. Cause I'll admit it - it's useful. I need these words so I don't have to talk all day just to explain the first sentence I said when I woke up in the morning. But nah, nah, nah, ENOUGH.






Being in the high-density-buzz-world of the AMC has convinced me that this language is dangerous. We can talk in circles all day about the word accountability, but if I still have no idea what tactic you tried out last time there was an assault in your community, if I have no idea what that conversation looked like and what steps were taken, then what have I learned?
I've learned that a lot of people think accountability is important.
Cool. Check. 




Of course education is extremely important, but let's be conscious of our audiences and our opportunities to move into action-mode. DOING is more important than theoretically-doing-but-it's-cool-cause-I-have-a-list-of-references-I-can-google-later.







Have our brains been so academicized, so made to privilege intellect, that that is the inherent mode in which we operate? We slip unblinkingly into analysis, criticism. & yes, that is essential. But at a certain point it rings hollow. What are we talking about? Are we too afraid of making mistakes? of being remembered negatively? of speaking for others? So we stick to abstraction. Better that than allow the vulnerability of giving a single detail. Our vocabularies are so bulked up, our brains so used to filling out multiple choice surveys, that all description,  all experience, all detail have fallen to the wayside. I think it also has to do with not trusting that our experiences are truly worthwhile and relevant.




This happened so much in femsex. Big ideas, suggesting at experiences, got traded around like abstract playing cards. We sat inside a flurry of hints forming clouds of people that I maybe knew something about. It took months and one much-needed conversation about masturbation to put some spine into our concept clouds. Some intimacy. Yes darling, imagine for a moment that you're truly around friends. Tell them what happened. They'll try to understand. You don't have to convince the room that your head is in the right place or that you read the right zine.


Pragmatism. I'm taking about what makes us do things.
How we spend our minute of our days is not besides the point. Are you trying to guess at how best to change the world? Or are you trying shit out on the daily to see what sticks?

Detroit Day 3, AMC Day 2. Or was it 1.5?

Have you ever been to a conference? 

 What were your first thought when you arrived?

How did you stay grounded?

Reflections from Day 2 in Detroit: Parkour is Possible, Couchsurfing Rulez, AMC = AMCrazy

Day 2 in Detroit.

Again, I'm feeling slightly overwhelmed by the sheer newness of this all. I arrived at the AMC to get my name tag and everyone there looked like someone I'd like to meet, organize, or make out with. Generally they were triple threats.

So of course I ran away, and now I'm in a cafe a couple of blocks away, drinking (overpriced) coffee and dog-earring every single page of the AMC Program Guide. Should I pick one track and stick with it, doing deep with a few key ideas ? Should I take some of everything, pushing myself to try some things that don't even look any good?

But reeeeeewiiiiiind, last night I couch surfed for the first time! Let's talk about that, that feels more stable than the rest of the unknowns of my life. Wow, couch surfing is the most stable thing in my life right now. Interesting.

So, last night my awesome couch surfing host Kris brought me to hang out with her friends in Ann Arbor. We stopped along the way to do some parkour. That's right! We were having a conversations in which I was mourning how on the one hand parkour is crazy cool because it reclaims space, but on the other hand it is so competitive and exclusive because it's all about badass tricks. Kris was like "Nahuh! Everyone starts off small! You only see the very best on youtube, but everyone started vaulting over low walls." So we did. At the first gas station we passed. I even scraped my knee!




When we had been sufficiently pummeled by the concrete we got back in the car and she lay the rest of her philosophy on me. My hang-ups about park our, she said, are exactly what keeps most people from trying new things. People don't want to try karate cause they're not already black belts. They won't touch snowboard cause they might fall. Kris had snowboarded about 3 times when she decided to go snowboarding at the fancy Italian slope in the Alps. Did she notice that everyone else was wealthy as hell and had grown up with all the fancy ski lessons one could buy? Sure, but she didn't care. She was there and she wasn't going to let anything sep her from getting hers.




In her opinion, exclusivity exists only in your mind, not in institutions themselves. I disagree on some levels - I don't think that the onus of inclusivity should fall solely on less privileged/experienced/fit people. But her outlook is a very inspiring and useful personal philosophy that I'm going to return to again and again. Who's fancy hors d'oeuvres at a black tie event we weren't invited to? OUR fancy hors d'oeuvres at a black tie event we weren't invited to!







Last thoughts -  the family in Ann Arbor we were visiting - really big, really bonded, really loving, really involved with cool social justice projects, real conscious of privilege, really Christian. These things are all connected. The community they had, their values and their drive all grew from their religious structures, more or less. I'm confused. Can we create this without god?

my first (of probably many)  Parkour injury

for more pics of detroit, visit my flickr
more conversation about the AMC to come. that shit was cray.

Detroit! + some tips for cheap travel

Welcome to Detroit!

i say to myself.

I've stepped off the bus for the last time (until next Monday) - no more connections to catch, 20-minute stretch breaks to squander. The brutally hot and broad boulevard is home now, unless I can find a spot better suited for survival. For thinking.

This headfirst tumble into the east/middle of the U.S. was obvious, thoughtless when all I had to compute was where and when the next bus was coming in and how to secure a window seat. But walking wordlessly away from the bus's hissing hydraulics, I can't help but notice that I have no idea what I'm doing. The 30 or so strangers on the bus with whom I barely exchanged glances now feel like a veritable community compared to how new all these people on the street look. Ok. Here I am. Whew.

I am in Detroit, MI for the 4-day long, widely-loved Allied Media Conference. The conference brings together artists, organizers, educators, techies, and media folks of various stripes to talk about how all these tools can make things, in a word, better. Several activist friends of mine have referred to the conference as "dreamy." Apparently it's so full of passionate people and actual movement-building that it'll make ya pinch yourself to see if you'll wake up. I've never gone before. I'm not even sure where I fit in to all this (am I an artist? an educator? Ahhhhh who am I?!?!? ok crisis over) but I'm volunteering for registration and documentation and I'm super pumped.

But all that's gonna come later. Right now I'm in Detroit a day early to "get a feel for the city" and I have no idea what's going on.
Ah yes, that sweet chaos-feeling.
I love travel.

Cafe Cass

Here are some of the ways I'm make this trip affordable, for all you would-be conference goers who can't swing fancy trips every time some activists decide to hang out:

1. Volunteering for the conference

You can find ways to volunteer or work trade for almost every conference, gathering, or festival. I volunteer for lots of reasons, only one is the free-ness. The biggest reason is that it gives me a chance to participate in the making of these things. It's far easier for me to make new, real connections when I am working side by side with people; I get lots of appreciation from everyone attending; and I don't get lost at sea in the craziness that is a large gathering. Sometimes I also get a free t-shirt and maybe even a soda.

1. Couchsurfing

I actually haven't couch surfed before this, but it was super super easy. Couch surfing is a free website where you can find places to stay, people to hang out with, and stuff to do all over the world. The most amazing thing about this to me is the community. When you're a couch surfer, it's like you're in on this crazy secret (hey! you can stay anywhere in the world for free! and with people who will take you out for a beer and introduce you to their friends!) and you're in the family immediately. 

1. Packing food ahead

This might seem nuts, but I went to the grocery store before leaving Providence and I bought enough snacks (nuts, dried fruit, hard cheese, some fruit) to pretty much last me the weekend. It's really not that big of a hassle, and now I don't have to watch my hard-earned singles disappear into the hands of every over-priced food truck trying to tempt me.

1. Megabus

Megabus goes all over the place (not literally) now. I had to separately get 3 trips to get to Detroit from Providence, but all in all it took the less time than one single Greyhound  bus doing the same trip. So even if it looks like there's no direct line, see if you can get some connecting ones. If you get tickets early it can be ridiculously cheap, and if you miss your bus you can get on the next one for an extra $5. You can also get creative with paying, but if you want to talk about that let's chat later.

delayed post: The Free Yard Sale!

I got rid of almost all of my stuff last weekend. Stuff and more stuff. No home = no storage, and there's only so much a pack can expand.  I was also taking care of two ex-roommates boxes of old unwanted clothes. There must have been at least 70 items of clothing, no joke.

So I organized a yard sale, hoping some community time and maybe even some dollars could be a part of the stuff-destruction. I made signs, a Facebook event, I even made a shit-ton of lemonade.
Thinking I'd catch lots of foot traffic, I set up all the clothes on hangers hung on the chain link fence next to the India Point Park Pedestrian Footbridge. And. The. Day. Wore. On.






I couldn't take it. I sold maybe 6 items in 5 hours. Made maybe 12 bucks. When it came time to pack up, i knew I couldn't emotionally handle another day of this. At least logistically I didn't want to deal with it. First thought was to bring everything to Salvation Army, but I ruled that out. I didn't want anyone to have to pay for it, and hasn't SA been accused of all sorts of mismanagement of dollars?
Then my friend Pau has the brilliant idea to do just DO what i wanted to do: leave all the stuff there, give it away for free. YAY!

One big "Free!" sign later, people were already starting to gather and buzz. In ten minutes I made as much money as I had made the whole day, just from folks wanting to knock me down a buck for the 7 dresses they picked up. I simply walked away from the whole thing, promising to come back the next day and clean up the debris.

This, my friends, is literally all that was left:

All hangers: empty. All knickknacks: disappeared. It literally looked like someone had decided to clean up for me.

And then the real joy! The stories! I kept running into friends who had randomly walked by the Free Sale. They had my friend's homespun yard, my mom's boyfriend's mama's wool sweater. They told me about the gaggle of people teeming around boxes, picking things up and exclaiming "Is this stuff really free?" 

My friend Jamie told me a ridiculously heart-warming story about 2 little girls who were there with their father. They kept picking things up and asking, shyly, if they could take it. "Yes, it's all free." was the response, and the girl's eyes would widen with surprise and joy. They didn't need to worry about the burden it was on their father, whether they had earned it. Jamie said she could see these little girls grappling with the possibility of stuff being for free; stuff that yours just cause; the possibility of people sharing for no reason beyond the desire to share.


So there you have it folks: free stuff makes you more money (if it's also donation-able), more community, and brings out the best in us.

Seriously, next time you have a yard sale, make it free!

Queer Pride! Insurgent queer fabulosity shouts out from Providence's Gay Pride Parade, 6/17

This month was Pride Month! Rhode Island has its very own massive Pride Parade, which is one of the best days of the year to be downtown. Everyone is excited to see you. Are we in this together? Not even a question.

BUT

(and not queer buttz)

As is the case in most cities I've been to, the LGBTQ scene is dominated by LGB folks and is increasingly corporate. The scene almost always takes place in bars, i.e. youth-free zones dedicated primarily to mating and alcohol. Pride Parades the world over are being sponsors by corporations responsible for the nasty capitalism that leaves so many queers and tradespeople in the streets. Has Pride lost its radical roots?

Nahuh. Cause the radical queers are coming! As a part of Queer Lil Rhody's month 'o' fun, an insurgent (non-permit-paying) queer faction joined the festivities at pride. This culminated in a crazy fun youth-organized, corporate-music-less by-donation partay. I don't feel like the insurgency was aggressive as much as it was instructive. Many folks seemed overwhelmingly pumped to see us, cause after all, marriage licenses aside, this shit is revolutionary. 

Parade Prep Party!

Parade Time!

Find out more about CeCe Mcdonald,
the target of racist transphobic attacks being incarnated for self-defense
http://supportcece.wordpress.com/

Oh dang, these folks made me cry. Youth Pride Rhode Island was fierce beyond reason!

Here's the poster from the Queer Dance Party that rocked the end of the night! 

and had very nice cake!

poster by Meg Powers

Great amazingness everyone! 

I really don't even know much more than that it was crazy fun, and having fun is half the battle.

Unite? and Fight!

I wasn't comfortable, necessarily.

Poster by Jenine Bressner

Not the way I usually am in these sorts of things: all fired up, all action-planning, all here-we-are-and-aint-it-cool-that-we-have-the-answers. I found my breath often held, slightly, partially engaged and partially waiting to see what would happen next. 

Last Thursday the Rhode Island Anti-Sexism League and Queer Lil Rhody hosted Unite & Fight! A Forum on Queer Liberation and Feminism at Libertalia Autonomous Space. This panel was a part of Queer Lil Rhody's month of radical queer events, a massively awesome fest of queerness that has rocked Providence's lil June socks off. There's been a youth-organized dance party, a political poster-making workshop, 8 films, a farm day, and so much more that I've given up listing each thing. Basically the queer community in Providence is popping and it's extremely delicious.

So back to that circle of folks sitting together and talking about how, why, when, and what is up with the union of queer liberation and feminism. So many important concepts were brought to light, but I want to focus on that slight discomfort that crept in to this seemingly obvious discussion. Turns out, uniting is more complicated than a hand shake and an agreement that gender oppression sucks. The discomfort I am speaking of came from the very raw realization that many people in the room did not in fact share the same politics, or the same priorities, or the same reasons for being there. This is true for any group of people hanging out, but often in activist circles we cling to our categories of oppression and hope that broad titles; "feminism," "queer liberation," etc; will keep us all convinced that we are in the same boat. 

How do we organize people whose priorities often fail to coincide, in fact sometimes contradict? One participant, who was queer-identified and male-bodied*, shared his first-time activism story: his mother was an anti-choice activist and he too became involved. He said that many of his beliefs had not changed since then, but he still wanted to stand in solidarity with women. He said this to a room scattered with some of the fiercest pro-choice activists I know. Did I cringe? Of course. But instead of jumping down his throat, the response was one of gratefulness. Grateful, because he went out on a limb to share his beliefs to a room full of those who fight that very belief. Grateful, because he broke the ice in a conversation that for a large part assumed we all already agreed. Grateful, because now we could get real about the challenges we face in movement-building in the real world. This might be one of the biggest ideological chasms I've seen accepted, openly, in a room brimming with political passion.

I have been reading the classic collection of essays, This Bridge Called My Back. These essays were written by radical women of color in the late '70s, and the collection addresses head-on the issue of assumed unity in a movement that in fact contains many differences. White, middle-class women's priorities are not all women's priorities. Experiences get excluded and oppression reiterated when we refuse to acknowledge these differences. It is essential that we stand alongside each other in struggle, but to claim unity numbs us to the complexity of our struggles. This assumed unity damned the women's movement of the 60's and 70's to a limited, elitist and fundamentally racist shell of what it could have been. 

This book helped me freak out with happy when tensions arose in the room last Thursday. There we were, feeling in real-time what it means to hold differences side by side without shying away. The discomfort of a situation that ain't so simple is the exact sort of discomfort that must be embraced if we are to build tolerance and respect and, ultimately, change. We will never all agree on every bullet point, but we can create tools for respecting each others' struggles and fighting together. This does not just apply to queer liberationists and feminists, but to every gradation of identity and struggle. The discussion was a meditation in listening that was sorely missed from most Occupy spaces I participated in, where the desperate rush to solidarity swept differences under the table.

This is exciting. If we can, within our own activist communities, finally start sitting with discomfort so that we can push through to understanding; if we can swallow our pride and our fears and allow people to actually be different from ourselves without pushing them away; if we can cut the politically correct bullishit and start speaking frankly about what keeps us from fully loving each other, then I am convinced liberation is unstoppable. 

The brilliant panelists and moderators blowing everyone's minds

Also, this is unrelated to the meta-conversation tone of the rest of this post, but I can't talk about the Unite & Fight panel without sharing panelist Malcolm Shank's response to a debate about the merits of radicalism versus reform: "I come from a more social services perspective... Helping people survive is the most radical sort of reform you can do."

* Male-Bodied: A term used to recognize a person who was assigned a male sex at birth, or who identifies themselves as having had/has a male body.